Improved air quality

Typing "Gulang county" into the website of the China National Environmental Monitoring Center shows that the air quality was "good" during the first week of this month, with the average concentration of PM2.5-airborne particulate matter that is harmful to human health-lower than 40 micrograms per cubic meter.

"The air quality has improved significantly due to the sand-control efforts in recent decades. A massive sandstorm, like the one in 1993, has not visited the county for more than 10 years," Shi Yinshan said.

According to the Gulang forestry department, in the past 38 years, rangers at Babusha have planted trees across more than 14,466 hectares, bringing 25,066 hectares of sand under control. In addition, more than 300 million trees are growing in the county, turning the previously sandstorm-ravaged region into an oasis.

The green "miracle" of Gulang is symbolic of China's efforts to green the country in recent decades. The central government has launched several programs nationwide, restricted commercial logging, protected forests and grassland, and replanted trees and grasses to reclaim desertified land.

In 1978, the Three-North Shelterbelt Program was launched to improve the environments of Northwest, North and Northeast China, while the Natural Forest Protection Program was implemented in 1998. A year later, the Conversion of Cropland to Forest and Grassland Program was launched, with the aim of minimizing widespread soil erosion and the degradation of vegetation, and improving water conservation.

Meanwhile, the National Tree-Planting Campaign-the world's longest-running public activity, initiated in 1981-has witnessed more than 16 billion individual contributions and seen about 74.2 billion trees planted.